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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28004376">Don't Fall Away</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Literary_Disaster/pseuds/Literary_Disaster'>Literary_Disaster</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Final Fantasy VI: Cold Fire [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Final Fantasy VI</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Injury, Death, F/F, Irrelevant Narrator, Sparkling Tears, Suicide</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 19:48:29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,336</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28004376</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Literary_Disaster/pseuds/Literary_Disaster</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Alternate ending to <i>Rust Never Sleeps</i>. After waking up in the newly destroyed world, Celes reflects on everything taken from her and contemplates how best to carry on.</p><p>Please see author's notes for more info.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Tina Branford | Terra Branford/Celes Chere</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Final Fantasy VI: Cold Fire [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/350861</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Don't Fall Away</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">


        <li>
            Inspired by

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/6067063">Who Gives Healing to the Healers? *Obsoleted*</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Literary_Disaster/pseuds/Literary_Disaster">Literary_Disaster</a>.
        </li>

    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p class="foot">This is a complete rewrite of <i>Who Gives Healing to the Healers?</i> to bring it up to my current literary standards. I thought the original had a decent idea, just executed poorly. This, I believe, rectifies that.

Because of the sheer difference in quality and standards (also to let people know that I'm still alive and doing things, albeit slowly), I ultimately decided to post this as its own seperate entity. Doing so also gives a good comparison of how I've changed, as a person and as a writer, over the last four years.

Hope you enjoy and thanks for reading.</p>
<hr/>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="indent">The ocean roared like grass in a gentle breeze. In fact, it's probably more correct to say the ocean roared like a dead chocobo. It, of course, should be noted that chocobos don't roar in death or when alive. Neither do oceans, really. So, the ocean oceaned like something pretending to be a roaring ocean and not doing a very good job of it, much like this opening.</p><p class="indent">From a sheer cliff overlooking the said ocean, Celes let her frown scrunch itself into a corner. The calmness of the surrounding waters was no surprise as it had been like this for however long she had been awake on this damnable island. The wind, too, had atrophied to the point that it couldn't even lift her straw for hair, let alone move an <em>entire</em> ocean.</p><p class="indent">Celes' stomach grumbled louder than the ocean waves. Again, this was of no surprise to anyone, especially Celes, as anything that would have been remotely edible in the past no longer was. The world had been beaten, broken, and befallen with a nasty, deadly illness. Any nourishing fruits it once bore were now gone, leaving behind only dirt and rock. At least, that was what she gathered from a cursory glance around.</p><p class="indent">Like the world, Celes, too, had been beaten, broken, and befallen with illness. After the world had exploded thanks to Kefka's usurping the power of the gods, Celes had woken here on this island. She had awoken alone, missing an eye to infection and dizzy with fever and malnourishment. She had dropped so much weight that even a skeleton would have shoved a sandwich down her gullet out of concern. The thought pushed her frown even farther into the corner.</p><p class="indent">A look in the nearby mirror after her waking had revealed a woman who hadn't been informed of her death, a recurring theme for Celes, it seemed. However, the observation had been true to a degree. The numbness and pain she had experienced upon waking, and tried to ignore still, had been incapacitating. Debilitating had been the notion that people she knew – her friends and loved ones, especially Terra – were dead and gone.</p><p class="indent">Celes might as well fall away and be dead herself.</p><p class="indent">At the foot of her makeshift bed, she had found the remains of what had once been a person. Even more concerning had been the fact that he had been someone she knew. Cid had somehow ended up on the island with her and had taken care of her until he had succumbed to his own injuries and illness.</p><p class="indent">"<em>I don't have much time left in this world. Celes, you've made me so proud, enough that I gladly spent my final days watching over you. I'm writing this to tell you --no, begging you-- whether I'm still here or not when you wake—if you wake—whatever happens to me, you must never give up hope. Wherever there's hope, there's always a way. It's always sunny outside of Vector."</em></p><p class="indent">"Shut the hell up, Cid," Celes shouted. "You bloody wanker!"</p><p class="indent">How dare he! How dare he urge her, beg her, to remain hopeful when there was nothing left in the world for her to be even hopeful about? Kefka won! The world was in shambles! Cid had died trying to keep her alive! And Terra—</p><p class="indent">Terra!</p><p class="indent">Celes tightly clenched the gemstone within her fist and didn't bother fighting back the tears from her one functioning eye. "God dammit, Terra!" She nearly sent the gem on a homerun pitch out into the murky waters but stopped just long of it and sent it burrowing into the dirt at her feet.</p><p class="indent">"Why?!" she demanded of the stone before falling to her knees. "Why didn't you listen to me?! I told you the healer stays in the god damn back!" She buried her face into her hands and let out a grief-stricken wail, not at all unlike an undead banshee. "I'm the god damn tank! The god damn tank plays on the fucking front lines!"</p><p class="indent">They had only just made it to the Floating Continent when a dragon of ancient mass destruction had ambushed them. And, of course, Kefka had convinced it that they were the enemies of the gods. And, of course, they had to defeat it to get to Kefka. And, of course, Terra had ignored orders to stay in the back row to do what healers do and, of course, she just had to go and—</p><p class="indent">Celes let her wails die like the wind and clutched the gem to her heart as if it would give her comfort.</p><p class="indent">
  <em>Celes glared up from her face full of dirt and at once felt her heart burrow into her stomach. Terra just stood there frozen with a look of absolute horror. Bloody claws protruded from her stomach, turning her stomach and dress into an inside-out shredded mess. Blood trickled down her hips and legs to pool at her feet. Celes wanted to say something. She wanted to do something. She needed to do something. In the end, time didn't allow her. She had been too slow, helpless.</em>
</p><p class="indent">
  <em>Terra managed to cough up blood and whisper, "I'm sorry," before the dragon ripped her apart with an ocean-shattering roar.</em>
</p><p class="indent">Celes had pleaded with gods she didn't believe in to turn back time. She had punched ice into the ground. She had cursed the sky. She had screamed until she had gone hoarse. She had single-handedly performed the final deathblow on the dragon and cleaved it clean in half – an eye for an eye, a life for a life.</p><p class="indent">Unfortunately, the worst-case outcome remained: Terra had protected Celes from certain death. Though more accurately, she had only delayed the inevitable. If Celes had died the moment she had seen bloody claws, the painful funeral had been finding magicite, Terra's esper essence, instead of a body.</p><p class="indent">Who gives healing to the healers? Who provides comfort in their time of need? Typically, it's those who love them, but love can only go so far as protection. Love had been unable to save Terra. Love had caused Celes to blame Kefka and Gestahl and go berserk on them, which then had dominoed an already delicate situation into oblivion. Love had been the distraction that had failed to stop the destruction of the world.</p><p class="indent">The only thing love had done, besides lie bleeding, was spare Terra the suffering that had come about after the world had been ripped asunder.</p><p class="indent">The world was dead. Cid was dead. Terra was stone dead, literally, and having that magicite in hand did nothing to ease the pain. If anything, it served as a reminder of what once was.</p><p class="indent">Celes shuddered and pulled her tattered bedsheet cape tighter, not that there was a breeze from which she needed protection. How long had it been since that day on the Floating Continent? How long had she been awake? It honestly was hard to say. Because the world had stopped turning, the sky was now locked in eternal twilight, with the sun forever hovering just over the horizon and frozen in time. If she used her weight loss as a guide, it could have been several months, but who knew what reality really was?</p><p class="indent">The loneliness didn't help either. It further skewed the perception of time into the overbearing. No signs of other humans. No signs of life, plant or animal. Even the wind and water were consistently still. The silence was deafening and maddening. She truly was alone in the world.</p><p class="indent">One could be nice and label this situation as bleak. One could get creative and label the situation as shitty. Either way, it was all semantics. Regardless of how one characterized it, there was no way out and no changing things back to how they were. This was life in a post-apocalyptic world where everyone and everything except her had gone and joined the choir invisible.</p><p class="indent">Even magic, which usually just was and was quite malleable to those who could use it, had died. Ice refused to bend to Celes' will and produced only a fingernail tip's worth of frost. One could argue that the lackluster results were due to Celes' weakened condition. It was possible, even very likely, but one would never know for sure in a world such as this.</p><p class="indent">It was lonely in this new world. No Edgar, Locke, Sabin, or Setzer. No one to love. No one to love her back. Even Terra, who had sworn to remain at her side until the end of days, was gone.</p><p class="indent">Although…</p><p class="indent">One could argue that Terra was still Terra just in stone form and, thus, fulfilling her promise. How Celes had managed to keep it in her possession, she did not know. She did know that the magicite did not exude the same warmth that Terra had in life. It didn't make her smile or laugh. It didn't exhilarate her as Terra had done. Instead, it was a stark reminder of what she had lost, had failed to protect, and how things had been and now weren't.</p><p class="indent">The magicite radiated sadness and despair, two emotions that had flashed on Terra's face before perishing. Or perhaps Celes was projecting feelings on something that couldn't have them.</p><p class="indent">Celes looked out over the ocean and watched the sun hover in place. "I miss you," she said, barely audible to her own ears. She had nothing left in this world. She had no place to call home. No friends. No lover. No strength. No right eye. No way off this infernal island.</p><p class="indent">Actually, that wasn't true. She had considered this once before and had disregarded it.</p><p class="indent">She crawled to the edge of the cliff with a wavering unsteadiness and peered over into the light seafoam and sharp, pointy rocks below. There was a way, a deadly way for sure, and one that, from this height, would surely kill her. But that was the point, right? With her injuries and the infections from said injuries, there was no way she could cheat death. Technically, Death would eventually come for her, but it was more a question of whether she wanted to wait or find Him herself. At this juncture, being alive was suffering, and she certainly couldn't suffer through it any longer.</p><p class="indent">With creaky, cracking knees, she stood and let the tattered bedsheet collect at her bare feet. Bearing in mind that she did not want to see the inevitable end coming, she turned about-face and studied in the distance the makeshift shack she had called shelter in this new world. It looked as desolate, lonely, and broken as her. Unlike her, it would continue to remain long after she was gone.</p><p class="indent">Celes clutched Terra close to her heart and took a painful, fearful hitched breath. This was it. She was going to do it. After agonizing over it, deliberating over it, for what seemed like days, she was going to follow through. To be clear, she did not want to die. There had been so many things she had wanted to do, so many things she wanted to see, she had wanted to say. But how could she do those things now? All that was left of her world was this tiny island, herself, and the pain she suffered.</p><p class="indent">
  <em>If I stumble, steady me. If I tumble, lend me a hand. Dust me off. Hug me. Don't fall away and leave me to myself. Let me know I'm okay.</em>
</p><p class="indent">Their promise to each other was not enough. How could it be? Love after death was broken, one-sided, and irreparable. Sometimes, to repair that which was broken, it needed to be broken a second time. By allowing herself to fall back into nothing, Celes would do just that and repair her shattered psyche.</p><p class="indent">For the first time, she noticed just how beautiful the sky looked with its pinks, oranges, and purples. For the first time, she noticed just how vast it was and how insignificant it made her feel in the grand scheme of things. For the first time, she saw just how majestic her little cliff looked from a lower angle. For the first time, she felt the freeing feeling of weightlessness. It all melted her anxieties and pain away to tears that, like Terra's magicite as it escaped her grip, sparkled above her in the dim sunlight.</p><p class="indent">With a sharp thud, that freeing feeling turned to white-hot unbearable agony. She could not move to ease it. Not even labored breaths helped. Whatever pain she had felt before now quadrupled in intensity. How…?! Why…?! Why was she still alive?!</p><p class="indent">
  <span class="indenchi">
    <em>"Celes, don't fall away."</em>
  </span>
</p><p class="indent">She opened her eye to see an angel smiling down at her, one with verdant eyes and ivy curls. She tried to lift an arm to grasp the hand outstretched towards her but couldn't. Her arm refused to listen and instead hemorrhaged tears and hot agony into her back.</p><p class="indent">
  <span class="indenchi">
    <em>"Take my hand."</em>
  </span>
</p><p class="indent">"I want to," she cried through clenched teeth. "It hurts too bloody much!" She openly sobbed as she willed her shaking hand to touch Terra's. The mental anguish was great. The physical pain was debilitating. The smell of copper and brine was nauseating. The sounds of the sea gently rapping on her stone deathbed were deafening to her fading ears. All she had to do was grab Terra's hand, and Terra would help her up. Their broken link would be repaired.</p><p class="indent">
  <span class="indenchi">
    <em>"It'll be okay."</em>
  </span>
</p><p class="indent">After much struggling, their fingers touched. At that moment, the world fell silent and grew dark. All the suffering Celes had known, experienced, ended, and ceased to be with a whimper and a sigh. The perpetual twilight had finally become eternal night.</p><p class="indent">Former Imperial General Celes Chere had drawn her last breath and shed her last tear. There on her final resting spot, marked by the natural oceanic tombstones, she remained, splayed, broken, and bruised, until all evidence of her despaired existence was healed and washed away by the reluctant and eventual healer of healers, Time.</p>
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